The Ring of Fire, Book One: The Riding of the Grey Posse
by Politesse
Summary: Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings as a mythology for his Britain. And hey, he did a good job! But here on the other side of the pond, we've got our own special kind of tall tale. This is the story of Old Bill Bowen, his curious ring, and everything that happened after. Set more in the legendary Old West than the real one.


**Prologue: An Unexpected Journey**

Up in the hills, but under the mountain, there lived a hatshaper. At least, so he described himself. Certainly, he did make a fine hat, and would sell you a fine wide brim for far less than its value at the May Fair. Lovely felt and leather things, hats to keep the June sun off your brow or the August monsoons and gullywashers from drenching you. Old Bill Bowen was a skilled craftsman by all accounts. Still, it was also a fact well-known in Riverton that he did not win his estimable fortune by haberdashery alone. The Bowens had always been well-off, and had kept a handsome estate under the mountain since the founding of the town in distant memory. They were a queer folk, and there was a special queerness that struck at least once a generation, carrying one them off to some uncommon destiny. The year our story began, it did not fail to strike a Bowen, though it bypassed the eldest daughter (Libby, a bit of a firebrand but no adventurer) and surprised everyone by carrying off her quiet younger brother, Billy. He was not yet called Old Bill at the time, for he was newly come into the estate, and most thought him the quiet, conservative ranching type that made up most of Riverton. It came as a shock, therefore, when Billy displayed a sudden penchant for traveling, that is, within a single morning. The old-timers down in the tavern still recall with no small amount of surprise and mystification the day that young Billy Bowen got up, looped a giant iron padlock round the front doors of Bowen Place, downed a single shot of whiskey at the saloon, saddled his horse, and plumb disappeared into the sunrise.

Many tales were later told of those years that Old Bill Bowen was gone, each more speculative than the next and all encouraged by his intensely private ways. Bill himself would never say a word about where he'd been or what came of it, so others were forced to improvise, and fell to the task with gusto. Go to the tavern even now and you'll hear all about his exploits going off to be a highway bandit in California, or enlisting to go and fight the Mexicans with the other famous Bill, or maybe it was the Seminoles. It was true in any case that he had an odd affinity for the Natives forever after, and always had a kind word for any Ute or Apache that drifted by on the northern road. Most unusual and not entirely appropriate for a Riverton man; by habit, they were not friendly with outsiders, especially not of the Injun variety. Riverton's frontier days were past, but memory was long. No one dared chide him for it. What did you do with a man like Old Bill? If he'd been quiet and queer before he left on his adventures, he was even more so when he came back. He spoke little, but there were mysteries wrapped in his dark eyes and a subtle danger painted into the weathered crook of his jawline. Younger folk with no memory of Billy the child told even taller tales of Old Bill and his adventures: Old Bill went to the jungles of Peru and fought a Woolly Oliphaunt; Old Bill traveled to the very gates of Hell and challenged the Devil to a duel on a silver fiddle. Other old-timers scoffed at such stories. No Riverton man would ever sign on for such a thing, not even one as singularly queer as Bill. Still, one story seemed as likely as the next, when it came down to it. Unless hell froze over and Bill himself spoke up about the matter, who could really say?

What _was_ known pretty well was the manner of his return from those adventures, because just about the whole town was there to witness it for themselves. It happened on the very same day that his sister Libby, now Libby Sacks, finally despaired of his ever returning home, and announced over a pint of beer that she was going to go and take possession of the Bowen Place. Moreover, she intended to go through the house and auction off anything that still remained of Bill's to any interested party. Many shook their heads at such audacity from a female, but they definitely qualified as interested parties. The prospect of a Yard Sale at the Bowen Place was news enough for a year in the sleepy town of Riverton. By the time Libby herself made it up the hill, with a hefty pair of bolt cutters to cut the lock, quite a crowd had assembled round the front porch to see the spectacle. A hush fell over the onlookers as she set metal to dusty metal. Though Libby herself knew better (having grown up there) many of the assembled expected a treasure trove of fineries to emerge from the crumbling ranch house, perhaps to be bought or bartered or simply made off with.

But the very second that Libby sprung the bolt, the sound of a gunshot rang out from the rear of the assembly and stopped the event in its tracks. Gaping, the startled auctioneers spun about to stare at a most unexpected sight: six hefty mules loaded to the gills with saddlebags brimming with golden Spanish doubloons, led on a line by a short man on a fine brown destrier. He was garbed in the well-worn uniform of a US Cavalryman, and an odd belt adorned with a ornate golden buckle cinched his waist. A sabre hung at his side and as everyone watched, he silently returned an army pistol to its holster from where he had fired it into the sky, and dismounted. He was older, and leaner, and harder, but ten years of mysterious wanderings and a short sandy beard could not suffice to disguise his face completely. Old Bill Bowen, Billy no longer, had returned.

No one spoke a word as Bill walked over to his front door and faced down his sister with an open palm, expectantly. A parade of expressions passed over Libby's face- relief, embarassment, anger- but she surrendered the bolt cutters without a comment. Bill tossed them off onto the brown grass and placed his hands on his hips. She seemed to be waiting for a greeting, and he seemed to be waiting for her to leave. They might have stood there for a while that way, but at that moment Olly Sacks burst from the crowd, red-faced. Things might have slid even further downhill from there, and indeed some of those who did not know Bill well later claimed to have seen his hand itch toward the pistol again. But even if that were so, it came to nothing; Olly just grabbed his sputtering wife by the arm and angrily dragged her back toward town. "Go on then", Old Bill finally spoke, and after a second it was clear he meant the watching audience, not his kin. He started making shooing motions, as though to sweep the uninvited guests bodily off the porch, and the crowd began to confusedly disperse and follow the Sacks clan back to Riverton main. One did not pick fights with an Adventurer. He shook his head, wiped his hands on his trousers as though to rid them of some unsightly stain, and walked into the house. The door shut, and things returned to normal for a very long time after.

There were those who feared that some of Old Bill Bowen's adventures might follow him back to Riverton, but it never happened. Nor, for the next few decades, did anything else. Those were dark days for most of the world, but the troubles never seemed to quite reach Riverton's doorstep, and they paid them little mind. They preferred it that way, safe and isolated from the affairs of nations, and concerned mostly with local society affairs unless forced to do otherwise. If over the years a handful of youths replayed Bill's escape and left to see the world at large, none of them ever returned as he had, or indeed returned at all. Some of the odder folks coming down the highway seemed to know something of Riverton's oldest and strangest inhabitant, but would refuse to elaborate. Were seldom asked in any case, as the townfolk didn't cotton much to talking to strangers, not even to settle old curiosities. Bill took up his hatshaping business, went for long walks in the hills at times, and hired the Gamgee boys to help with the repairs and tend a growing herd of horses and donkeys. Mostly, he kept to himself and said not a word about the Yard Sale or anything else from that time. In time, only Libby and her friends had anything ill to say of him, for though peculiar, he'd brought no trouble after all and was generous with his perhaps ill-gotten treasure. And a decent haberdasher to boot, as it turned out. Most assumed that whatever whimsy had once whisked Old Bill away, he was over it now, and that those once-distressing events could be retired to the much more comfortable categories of memory and rumor.

In time, it was almost forgotten that Bill Bowen _was_ the same Old Bill who starred in the fanciful stories of the children, or that he had ever truly left and and come back so remarkably. An increasing number of the folk who'd seen it had passed on, and their offspring cared more about the normal affairs of the village than about any oddities that had occurred in their parent's time. At least until the day of the Party.


End file.
